103
by matchboxcars
Summary: “I’m just…Sorta lost here Liv.” “Welcome to the club”
1. Chapter 1

She wonders, as she climbs yet another flight of stairs how it came to be that the elevator would break down on the coldest day

She wonders, as she climbs yet another flight of stairs how it came to be that the elevator would break down on the coldest day in January when she had six bags of groceries and a fever of 103. It was seven days after New Years. She worked Christmas, she worked New Years Eve, and had it been England, she would have worked Boxing Day as well. Cragen sent her home because Lydia Knowles was in no way going to be found today. She hadn't been found Christmas, when everyone except she and Munch were at home with their families, and she hadn't been found on New Years either, when Fin and she worked a stake out and welcomed in the New Year with a fresh cup of coffee. She hadn't been found on Boxing Day, when Elliot came in at two with no shoulder tension, no headache, no sleep caught on the hard mattresses of the crib. Cragen sent her home seven days after New Years when he caught her losing her breakfast in the women's bathroom. Elliot had told her not to walk home as she gathered up her jacket, purse, and headed for the door. It was Munch who offered her a ride. Olivia turned around at the sound of a chair pulling back, and from the hallway, she watched as Fin called Elliot an ass and Elliot bristled but made no move to fight back. John put his hand on her back, led her to the car, and he turned the heat on high as soon as they pulled out.

"Liv?"

"Yeah John?"

Munch always looked lost when he had something important to say, when he was softer and kinder.

"Call if you need anything."

"Yeah, I will"

He looked sad. She wondered what kind of conversations Fin and he had about her when they were alone with hours to kill on a stakeout.

"I'll be fine John. Thanks for the ride."

"Anything for a beautiful lady"

"Shove it John."

"Take care of yourself Olivia"

She slammed the door, the elevator had worked then and she stood in the middle of it, not touching any walls because today they smelled like piss and alcohol. She fell asleep for the better half of the morning, but the afternoon arose and she went grocery shopping. That's when the elevator broke, that's when she almost passed out on the stairs, that's when she barely got into her apartment in time to throw up again. She put away everything perishable and then went back to sleep. Knocking woke her up at seven. Assuming her neighbors kid had just locked himself out again, she opened the door. She wished she hadn't. She was met with a dour Elliot storming his way into her apartment and grabbing one beer, not two, from her fridge.

"El?"

"We got him"

"Okay"

"He killed her"

She sighed. Of course. She had only been working this case practically solo for two weeks, and he was mad.

"Looked like –"

"Elliot, they all look like your kids."

"Shut Up"

"Get out."

He turned to her. He was all brick and concrete and squinted eyes.

"What?"

"Get out"

"What the hell Olivia?"

"If you're going to stay, don't yell at me, and keep your fucking voice down, I can barely stand the light, let alone you yelling."

His face softened. He hadn't seemed to have even acknowledged her appearance, the paleness of her skin, the shake in her hands, the exhaustion creeping its way from her eyes. Her hair was mussed, her arms wrapped around her, Goosebumps traveling the periphery of her skin.

She went and sat down. He made his way to her kitchen, put the kettle on. Opened his beer, rolled his neck and then went to sit on the couch.

"Sorry"

"Yeah"

"I just-"

"There was no way she was alive Elliot. We worked this case day in and day out for three weeks."

"You did."

"So did everyone else"

"But you never left"

"Are you just here to fight with me?'

"What do you mean?"

"You don't make any sense El."

"Yeah."

"She did look like Lizzie"

"Yeah."

"How long you been sick?"

"A while."

The kettle whistled, and he stood. Digging in her cupboards he found peppermint tea bags and a mug. He grabbed the blanket off the couch and threw it over her before handing her the tea, and then sat back down.

"You eaten?"

"No."

"Liv."

"Don't go their El. Please."

He stood again, his beer half gone, his rage tempered by the woman huddled into the corner of the couch, and he dug around her drawers for a take out menu. Picking up the phone, he ordered.

He stared at her from the kitchen. He was always staring at her these days, with sad eyes and a cocked head.

"What?"

"I'm sorry. You were asleep. This was your case and I wake you up and, Liv you look like shit.

"Thanks."

"I'm just…Sorta lost here Liv."

"Welcome to the club"

Olivia fell asleep before the deliveryman even rang her doorbell. Elliot paid, woke her up and forced food down her throat. She thought, as he left, that he was the most bizarre man she had ever encountered.


	2. Chapter 2

She was puttering

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Author's note: thanks so much for all the reviews guys, I really appreciate it!

She was puttering. Cragen hadn't let her back to work, and she didn't trust her stomach enough to go farther than the kitchen anyways. Elliot was at work, everyone was at work. She checked her e-mail, did her laundry, cleaned her fridge. She was puttering, idling, she hadn't had this much time since never, and she was bored.

Elliot called at two.

"You bored yet."

"One could say that."

"You're fridge was grose – "

"I cleaned it."

"Olivia gets her allowance this week."

"Shut up"

"Cragen says if you don't puke on him you can come back tomorrow"

"How chivalrous of him"

"He just bought a new suit"

"Oh. Well, tell him I can make it to the bathroom."

"You could take tomorrow off"

"You don't want to see me?"

"New shirt"

"See you tomorrow asshole"

"Can't wait"

Could he read her mind, she wondered. He knew just when to call, just when to push her buttons, start a fight, or say something nice to retain the status quo. God she just wanted them off of this fence, whatever it was. Because they had been so close to yelling or crying for so long that she wondered if there was anything other than neutral reactions left for them. Because they were better when they were clicking gears. Because she wants to yell at him. Because he has looked so sad.

He knocks on her door at four thirty.

"You do have a family you know."

"They're in Jersey"

"Scared to go home?"

"Right…"

"I know, no one there to look for the boogie man"

"Gives me the willies"

She throws him a beer. He pops a Katherine Hepburn movie into her VCR. She wonders when he learned to make himself at home, or if he had always been so at ease. She thinks maybe he just jumped into knowing her too well.

"You look better"

"Yeah"

"Don't look like a polar bear in a snow storm"

"I shave every other day El"

"Right."

They sit in silence, watching as Hepburn gallivants around Jimmy Stewart, her flamboyance bordering on unnecessary.

"Liv?"

"Yeah"

"I'm sorry"

There are about one hundred things he could be sorry for. Ninety-three of them involve being an ass, and the other seven involve things they don't talk about.

"For what?"

"Being an ass"

"I know"

But he looks frustrated to her, like that wasn't really what he wanted to say.

"El?"

"I just-It's just- you deserve so much better"

She doesn't want to go there, she doesn't go there. Unsteady waters.

"Elliot-"

'No, I just, sometimes when I think of you alone at night, I get really angry because, you know, being alone is awful."

"I thought I had you?"

"You do. You always do Liv, but you know"

She does know. She's looking at the television again. Elliot's is staring at his hands. They don't talk because it isn't fair. She doesn't want him to leave. She doesn't love him in the way lovers love each other, but sometimes she does. Sometimes, she doesn't want to talk to herself so much.


	3. Chapter 3

She made it in to work at seven thirty. Elliot walked in at eight.

"You eat breakfast?"

"Well good morning to you too. I'm just fine, thanks for asking."

He smirked his predator smirk. Threw a bagel on her desk and sat down across from her.

" You're an angel in disguise as the rear end of a donkey Elliot. Thanks"

"It's a covert operation. And you're welcome"

Cragen emerged from his office holding a file and a creased eyebrow.

"You better Benson?"

"Yeah Cap, thanks."

He sent them off to the ER. Olivia took over after the woman flinched at Elliot's voice. They left after an hour to go back to the station and wait on a rape kit, a follow up, a catalyst.

"You did my paperwork?"

"It's been slow"

"You could have gone home"

"Didn't want to"

"Still on the couch?"

"Happens"

"for what it's worth, I think you did the right thing"

"No you don't"

"El…"

"You were pissed."

"Not about your decision. "

"Then what"

"You could have talked to me"

She wants this to end. They are getting close to subtracting another unit from the seven things they don't talk about, and she doesn't want to go there. He's going to back fire on her and she knows it.

He rolls his chair back, pops his back. "We could make a deal."

"What do you mean?"

"I tell you about my shit if you tell me about yours"

God, he's an ass. He knows about everything. Everything minus one.

"It's not quite a fair trade, is it?"

"I read the report."

"I know."

This is entrapment. She wants to panic, puke, do anything to go back home to bed. She wants the new sheets she bought, the new comforter, all the new bed shit she bought after she got fed up with her couch. She wants to crawl up into a little ball and forget she ever existed.

"Liv…"

It's the 'I'm a sympathetic Elliot face' that coerces her into getting that fifth cup of coffee.

She sits back down. "I don't want to talk about it El."

"You need to."

"And I do"

"Just not to me"

"Right."

"Why?"

She wants to slam something, hit him, quit, run, stay and fix all of this.

"You could answer that for me"

"This isn't about me"

"It's always about you Eliot"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I don't want to talk about it."

They don't speak until lunch, when he grabs her hand and pulls her to Maggie's subs two blocks down.

"I didn't want to tell you"

"I gathered"

"Thought you might think I was crazy"

"You are"

Yeah…"

He looks solemn, like a boy at confession or something just as trite.

"Liv, I-"

"I know"

He wants her to give too. Fair trade coffee, fair trade confession, get all out and purify. She wants to sleep.

"I don't sleep"

"I noticed"

"It's so fucked up"

"Yeah"

"Don't blame Fin"

He had grown white and tense since she began, and now she wondered if she needed to touch him, shake him, laugh, anything to uncoil the ball he was wrapped in.

"You want to cap off that testosterone before you send the table and my French fries through the roof?"

"You don't have any French fries?" he looked down, relaxation swimming through his face, "Oh"

She smiles. He smirks, hands her the ketchup.

"Brat."

"Ass"


	4. Chapter 4

Authors Note: thanks again for all the reviews. Sorry this chapter is so short, needed a direction change.

By the end of the first hour of a stakeout, they have eaten all the potato chips. By hour three, she has a migraine and Kathy has called twice.

"You still on the couch?"

"Nah"

"Good"

"We like the make up sex"

"Wow El. Just what I was dying to know about."

She looks out the window. Fin buzzes over the radio that they will be relieved in three hours. It's quiet then; Olivia is watching winter creep in through the back door, the darkening sky of four thirty in the evening. She wants a cup of tea from a porcelain mug. She wants a baby wrapped up in a blanket, soft and warm.

"You sleeping?"

"No"

He nods, his eyebrows fall closer to his eyes and he looks profound, terrified, sad.

"I'm fine El"

"I know"

She sighs, envisions a fireplace, a warm cabin, a puppy.

"Liv, my phone is on for you twenty four hours, you –"

"I know"

Except she doesn't. She doesn't trust him to pick up now that he has a baby, Kathy, Kathleen; everything is up in the air for him. She doesn't trust him to pick up his phone because she knows he won't put it down until he has turned one hundred eighty degrees away from what is right. Her entire body aches. She's starting to see white specks float in her vision. She's so damn cold.

"You need some Advil?"

"Took four an hour ago"

Fin pops up on the radio, and the sheer volume wrenches her head and she rolls the window down, needing cold air, something sharp, something grounding. Elliot steadies her arm with his hand. He is warm. She is so damn cold.

"They got him. We can leave."

"Well, then pedal to the metal boy"

He sighs. Puts the car in reverse as he clenches his teeth.

"You aren't okay anymore Liv"

"Thanks Freud"

"I'm just saying, you look…"

He's given up on her. She feels it exit out of him and she can finally close her eyes. She would still give him her kidney. He's all that she's got. Not that he knows that.


	5. Chapter 5

She went solo for the interrogation. He was a woman hater, of course, a control freak, a freak. He lunged at her, she slammed her arm into his nose, and he told her every little detail with blood dripping into his teeth.

Cragen patted her on the back as she walked out, told her to go home. Elliot was waiting at his desk.

"You got blood on your arm"

"I need a shower."

She felt as if she would throw up. Three women with his name carved on their arms, two more at the bottom of the Hudson.

"You want a ride?"

"You leaving?"

"Yeah. I'm in severe diaper debt."

"Okay. Thanks"

He looks at her with a creased brow. This time he is confused.

"It's no problem"

He stared at her as he parked.

"I'm really not what you should be looking at right now El, that's a Lexus right there"

"Liv, you call me. I'm not asking you anymore, if anything is wrong – "

"Elliot, I'm fine. I don't know where the hell you are getting this idea that I'm falling apart or breaking or whatever, but you can just shove it up your ass, because I am fine, I can take care of myself, I'm a big girl"

"Just because it's what you've always done doesn't mean it's what you have to do now"

"Elliot. Go home. You're kids miss you, your wife – "

"God you're so self defeating. You know that? You can't let yourself have one good thing."

She slammed the door. He followed her. Cornered her at the door.

"It's okay to get what you want Olivia"

"You want to know what I want Elliot?"

He looked suddenly unsure of himself,

"I-"

"I want to sleep. I want a shower. I want to forget what I just heard from some sick freak and I want my partner to trust me when I say that I'm okay."

"Alright."

"I want to quit this shit with you where you pretend like you're the perfectly stable and adjusted one in the partnership because I will tell you something my friend, you're as fucked up as the rest of us. Five kids and a cookie cutter wife won't change that. I want you to quit acting like I can't do my job and I want you to quit telling me about your family and just go home to them El, because you are one lucky bastard and so they are they, and you all deserve to be with each other and all that other shit, so just go."

"That's what this is about?"

"What?"

"You're mad because I have a family?"

"What? Elliot, I'm not mad. I'm tired. I want you to go home to your family because they make you happy. I want to sleep-"

"You don't sleep anymore Liv"

"Would you just shut up for once? I want you to go home Elliot. Because they matter too. Because I don't want you here. Because I need some time. Okay? Just go."

"My phone is on. Blink your lights."

She breathed a sigh of relief as he walked to the car. The elevator was working again, and this time it smelled like baby powder. She rubbed her forehead as she pressed the button, and blinked her light upon entering her apartment. Shower was the first thought in her mind, and she stayed under the hot water for an hour. She had collapsed on her couch when her phone beeped. Elliot. With a sigh, she opened the message,

"I'm sorry"


	6. Chapter 6

She's going to add teaching to the top of the things she would be good at but will never do list. The University of New Mexico has a criminology department, they're hiring, they want experienced people. Right. It'll go right on top of motherhood. She sighs, throwing it into the trash, and Elliot looks up. He's been looking like a cross bred sheepish/ hard ass. She wonders what a dog would look like if it were Elliot. Probably a hairless corgi with some bull dog thrown in for looks.

"You okay?"

"Fine"

She's being a bitch and she knows it, but the man has sunk to an all time low. He's not the technology type. No one apologizes over the phone, especially not in a fucking text message, and now, eight hours later, he is sitting at his desk with his thermos of coffee and the sandwich his sweet little wife made him, and he looks so goddamned domestic that she wants to smack the contentment off his face. Because it's not fair that he can still be happy when they aren't okay. She thought they were more than that.

She went through half a bottle of wine last night, and now she's all sugared up with a head ache the size of Alaska, and it's everything she can do not to puke when Munch walks in with lochs on his bagel.

"You're green."

"Yeah, well, that wine tasted fine last night"

He suddenly looks perturbed, like her alcohol consumption is enough to rattle him but not the words she said to him last night.

"How much did you drink?"

"Apparently, too much"

"You're still pissed"

"You were just born to be a detective, weren't ya?"

She wishes she felt more powerful, but she can't even take an advil because she thinks if she swallows anything, she will lose it in the trash can, It would almost be worth it though, Fin hates anything to do with puking, and he had been wearing an 'I just got laid' look on his face all night, and she thinks she would like to smear it away. Just because she wants to be that kind of bitch today. Just because she had to go and choose a total flake as a best friend. An asshole too.

When she was sixteen, she took her first drink. A wine cooler. three shots of rum. When she got home, her mother was passed out on the couch, but, the morning after, as she leaned over the toilet, her mother knew.

"_What did you do Liv?"  
"Nothing, mom, just the flu"_

"_You went to a party, didn't you?"_

"_That would require having friends mom, I'm just sick"_

"_Livvy, don't do what I did"_

She remembers thinking to herself, what, get drunk, raped, and then have a completely unwanted child? Okay mom, good advice. Really, thanks.

Elliot is looking at her again. She wonders if he is even capable of taking his eyes off her for more than five minutes these days.

"I really am sorry"

"Yeah, well"

He wants her to apologize too. She thinks she may be done apologizing, like maybe she doesn't want to go swimming through dumpsters to find the little piece of Elliot Stabler she had managed to hold on to. Between a hangover, sleepless months, and a picture of tortured five year old, she isn't sure she can do much more than get through the day anyway.

Teaching. It sounded so good until she pictured herself in front of the class on the first day.

"_hey class. I'm Olivia Benson, your fearless leader for criminology 360, sex crimes. I hope everyone has their text, syllabuses are available online. Let's start with rape…._

And then, they would have to get to her own career at some point. They all wanted a bio.

_Olivia Benson. Forty two. No family, except for one estranged brother she met when she thirty nine because her rapist father actually had a family. No children. Raised by alcoholic mother. Only friend, a cop in New York who she never speaks to because they don't know how to talk to each other anymore. _

And then they would get to child molestation

"_Brace yourself guys. Get ready to see pictures of a six year old female who suffered severe internal damage due to the brutal rape by her own uncle. Or here's a ten year old boy who laid on his stomach all day after being sodomized by step dad. Or here is a teacher, impregnated by her fourteen year old student. Ever seen a kid with no soul? I've seen hundreds. Still want to work in law enforcement? _

Teaching was definitely out.


	7. Chapter 7

Authors Note: Thanks to everyone who has reviewed. You guys are awesome, so sweet. I really appreciate it!

Teenage girls are far too receptive for their lack of inhibition. Ticking clocks. Elliot came back to the station after the courthouse all soft eyed and content, like he alone had arranged the best possible solution, like he alone could save a little girl's life. This time, there had been no "hey partner, you'll get there, you're great with kids," just a harsh anti abortion comment and a cocky pose. He didn't want her anymore. His barren, miserable, traumatized partner. Traumatized. The word tastes bitter on her tongue, and she wonders, since he read the report, what he must think of her. His partner who can't watch her own back.

Cragen has, it seems, grown even more paternal with her since Sealview, since Kathleen and astronaut boy, since the shit that is Elliot hit the fan and came splattering down around her. The conference had been nice, a clean hotel with a big couch and thirty-five channels, a Jacuzzi tub. It was nice to get away from blue eyes and just be a competent cop from a tough unit. But when she showed up, Cragen seemed to lighten a bit, like he had missed her, and that warmed her enough to get through the iceberg field of Elliot. And for that small solace, she is grateful. Because she needs to take the little things these days.

"He took her in"

She leveled her eyes at him. He looked genuinely content with the situation.

"That's good El."

"Yeah"

He's looking down at the file. She winces as she downs the rest of her cold coffee.

"I'm going to head out El"

"Okay"

'Night"

He doesn't respond, and as she unlocks her locker, she wonders if they will ever speak again.

"Hey Liv?"

"Yeah?"

"You want to, I don't know, get a drink?"

"I'm tired Elliot"

"Are you really going to sleep tonight? Come on, put off the inevitable"

He knows her too well. Elliot and teenage girls need to learn how to shut up. They shouldn't be allowed Olivia Benson because Olivia Benson does not have the energy to force things not to hurt anymore, and these days, everything hurts.

'You buying"

"First round"

"Alright"

Maloney's is pretty quiet on Tuesday nights, and she wishes she could go home. It's too cold outside, it's too hot inside, and Elliot looks so damned content. She's drinking beer tonight, and so is he. Tonight, they are cops.

"How was the conference?"

"It was good."

"Learn anything?"

"New statistics, not to drink the coffee, met some plainclothes from Austin."

"This was a fucked up case"

She sighs, leaning back on her barstool. She misses Casey, especially at times like these when she could have been at the bar with them, telling Elliot to shut up or distracting him with baseball. Casey had her back when it came to Elliot. Greyleck is good. Olivia will give her that. It's just that she's good in the way a bulldozer is efficient but never very clean.

"They all are El"

"Sixteen" he shakes his head.

"Yeah"

She wants to leave. She's getting the itch to distract him and hail a cab before he can say stop.

"Elliot, it's late. Go home."

"You going to sleep tonight?"

"What is wrong with you?"

"What do you mean? I care about you Liv"

It's her cue to leave. She can't take him caring about her again.

"That's good El. Look, congratulations, you did good on this one. I'm going home."

She sees him, as she pulls her coat off the chair and heads for the door, she sees him raise his hand to protest. But she wouldn't turn around this time. It was time to go home.


	8. Chapter 8

After she watches Jonas turn his back on Linnie, she gives up on love. She goes back to the station, content to stare at twelve open cases over eight cups of coffee, have Elliot roll his eyes when she spends all of the next day running to the bathroom. She's not young anymore, coffee fills her bladder, she dyes the grey hairs on her head, and she hears the ticking of time running out.

Cragen lays his hand on her shoulder when she walks in, and it's alls she can do not to fall into him and pretend, for one second, that given a totally alternate universe, he could have been her father, could have kept her safe.

"Go home Liv"

"Yeah"

He looks at her with such intent. Don has always had sad eyes. He cares too much, and she knows one of these days he won't want to take her, wet and lost, back in again.

"I'll see you tomorrow"

"Have a good night Cap"

"Get some sleep

She's on cup four when Elliot returns. Her hands are shaking and she has rearranged pictures, searched dozens of MOs, and stubbed her toe on the leg of her desk.

"Why is your shoe over here?"

"Stubbed my toe"

"Okay, but why is your shoe over here"

"Hurts like a bitch"

He smirks. She thinks he likes her upset, bitchy. He's solemn when she's quiet.

"Olivia, go home, get some sleep"

She swings her head up, checks the clock. It's one in the morning, and the family man is telling her to go home. Right. He's in trouble again.

"Why are you here?"

"You weren't answering your phone"

"Okay"

"Guess Kathy got tired of me, as she put it, looking pissed and scared and making the baby cry"

He looks sheepish now. His wife had to send him in to check on her. She likes Kathy, really, because Kathy is so sharp, so smart, but this is bordering on a Kathy makes Elliot make Olivia feel better project, and he has been so nice to her lately that she can't help but think Elliot's wife is pulling puppet strings. Because Elliot isn't nice to Olivia. Elliot doesn't think Olivia can watch her own back.

She wants to be pissed. Really, she wants to be pissed that Elliot can only care about her when he gets out of diaper duty, but god, she is so touched right now. Somebody with only tertiary connections to work actually cares about her. Somebody with five kids, a husband, a job, a family the size of Montana to care for, cares about her too.

So she smiles. And he smiles back, shakes his keys, and tells her to get in the car. She says goodbye to the ghosts on her desk, six year old Elisa, the college student, the banker, the mother.

When they pull in front of her apartment, she says thanks, and he says yeah, and they stare, because these days, they don't know how to talk to each other. Elliot still moves his arm with winces, and she still winces at him. They don't laugh like they used to, they are all thin lined smile and cynical smirks, and near tear and near death experiences, and after a while, words fall short.

He squeezes her hand. She wants to cry. She's going to cry. She wishes she were pmsing, she wishes he didn't look so kind, she wishes his wife had never cared. The door slams, and she thinks, for a fraction of time, that he is walking away. That he is angry. He opens her door. Wraps his arms around her. She wonders when the last time was that the thing she held onto wasn't a pillow or a victim, and she can only think of Harris. She can't stop crying now. She wants a shot of vodka. She wants a baby, and she hopes to god he doesn't let go.


	9. Chapter 9

The third time Olivia went to see Margot, she had been on edge, cold, and blind sighted with a case. Margot gave Olivia her cell phone number, and Olivia had balked.

"Just in case," she had said.

Its one in the morning. She has Margot's cell phone number on the back of a business card, clutched in her hand, her cell phone in the other. She doesn't know how to do this. She doesn't ask for help. She doesn't need help. But the culmination of all the stressors and wide eyed moments of panic, the gun to an innocent man's head, Fin, Cragen, and the absence of Elliot, who had no idea anyway. She hurts from head to toe. She wishes someone would knock on her door. She wishes Cragen had told her to see someone, not take some obscure amount of time off. She could have been one step ahead. Now she feels she will never catch up.

This will be one of the nights where she wakes up, or never falls asleep, in a panic. She will whisper to herself, tell herself its okay, convince her fingers to cease their endless twittering, and she will find out what people do at ungodly hours, and she will watch the sun creep up over New York. She feels cold, clammy, but these days she is always cold, these days, she can't leave a basement she walked out of six months ago. Her mother, when she was drunk and cruel, used to whisper that she would never win the war, that even a battle was a failure. She understands now.

She wants someone who will understand why she only drinks water when they go for drinks, she wants someone to understand why she doesn't look like she used to, dress like she used to, why she doesn't know how to smile anymore. Melinda pulled her aside during the autopsy of Jessie, told her to take some time off, told her to call her, told her to do all things that normally Olivia would tell a vic. Melinda had hugged her, and the pathetically terrified part of Olivia had wanted to take those few seconds and just feel safe, but the independent side warned that safety in another was a hard road to walk on. You can't depend on people. They either die or turn away.

She should call Margot. She wonders if the woman has a family, a husband, kids. She finds she doesn't care. She isn't fit parent material anymore; she's hardly fit to walk down the street.

She's talking to herself again, whispering to the window that she's allowed to ask for help, no one is going to hurt her for needing a hand, she deserves this, she should do this. Time has broken through night, it's four thirty. Time moves so strangely when one is terrified. She is terrified. And it's strange, because the fear has moved away from Harris to herself, and she doesn't feel safe in her own body because everything is so far away, everyone is so far away.

There's no crying in baseball and there's certainly no crying at six in the morning, when Margot is being so nice and the sun is blinding through her window and she wonders if someone is going to commit her. It took five hours to work up the courage and she is so damn tired and the world has to be ending. Her partner cares less about her than the ever-elusive Fin, and she can't stop talking to herself even when she's talking on the phone.

The knock on her door is soft, dense. Margot wants her to see a psychiatrist, get a prescription for drugs and calm the fuck down. She is still talking to herself. Time off was a bad idea. But someone is knocking at her door. She hangs up the phone.

It's Elliot. He looks scared and mad and confused. He doesn't see her like this. He doesn't see her, not really, not anymore, but she's always known how to self soothe.

"Cap told me you're taking some time off"

"Yeah"

"Why?"

"El…"

"You need to talk to me Olivia."

"Well, Elliot, it's hard to do when you aren't listening"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

She turns to him now. She is so fed up with angry men, their rage seething over and burning her hands, her eyes, her heart. She's all charred and black and no one seems to give a shit that she can barely turn around without losing her way.

But she's always been a pacifier too.

She lays her hand on his arm, finds the voice she uses when she needs to be calm, assuring,

"Elliot, It's alright, I understand, I'm the last thing you need right now, Kathy, the baby, Kathleen, then the whole Dick thing. I get it, all right. Just, don't expect me to want to talk every time you get on your high horse."

"What the hell is going on with you?"

"I'm fine"

"Like hell you are"

"Cause you are just mister got it together himself"

He's running his hands over his head, rubbing his eyes. He looks tired, and if he looks tired, she must look worse, because she has always managed to look worse than him.

She sits on the couch. Her body feels weak and unkempt, muscle tone lost, she's gained weight from not eating, not exercising, from too much coffee.

"Liv..."

"Ask Fin"

"I did"

She can't feel her toes, but her shoulders are burning and she wants to cry. God, she is so frantically exhausted. She wants a cup of coffee; she wants the sparks behind her eyes to go away.

"He didn't tell me a thing, except to get my sorry ass over here"

He's trying to joke. He's scared shitless.

She's always been a sucker for Elliot too.

"I uh, " She runs her fingers over her face, rakes them through her hair, squeezes her neck, "I lost it El, I almost killed an innocent man"

He looks at her, and she wonders when he got so calm, because he didn't even flinch, and she can barely breathe.

"Why?"

"Hit me in the stomach. got thrown against a wall"

"Liv…"

"Elliot, I know you know what happened with Harris. Can we just not talk about it?"

Her tongue sticks every time she says his name. Her eyes start to hurt and she never knows what do with her hands when she talks about him. Elliot's talking. He's far away. She has got to be insane, they need to lock her up. Her skin hurts.

"Olivia"

"I'm sorry."

He's got his hands on her shoulders. Her skin hurts so much.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry"

She must have looked scared, because he throws his hands off of her. She wishes she could react, laugh, scoff, get angry. All she can do is squeeze her eyes shut, tight, ball her fists, fight the sparks in her brain.

"I'm sorry"

He's ducked his head to meet her eyes. She wishes the lights were out; she should have taken another pill. Elliot is looking at her like he looks at his kids, and, for a brief second, she wonders if that is what it's like to feel secure, accepted, loved.

"Hey"

His head ducks even lower. She is going to cry.

"Hey, Liv, you're okay. All right? You're fine. You can do this. I got you. I'm not going anywhere."

Everything has gotten so slow. He is all silence and calm and she can't lift her head, can't open her eyes, and she can't deal with this right now.

"I need a drink"

"Okay"

She wonders, as she pours them both a shot of whiskey, she wonders when he decided to care.


End file.
